


not much to ask

by rodrikstark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Avengers (2012), SHIELD Agent Reader (Marvel), Steve Rogers Angst, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Fluff, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, The Avengers (2012) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rodrikstark/pseuds/rodrikstark
Summary: not even days after steve rogers emerged from the ice, SHIELD assigns you to stay close.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	1. part 1

**Author's Note:**

> reader is a SHIELD agent with a job similar to sharon's, except this is set beween TFA and Avengers.
> 
> i think there’s like a month post-capsicle and pre-avengers? i tried to make this as canon as possible, but if i’m wrong, then ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. title from you matter to me (waitress)

You should feel vaguely insulted that with your years of combat training, engineering degree, and expertise in weaponry, SHIELD assigned you to meticulously log the actions of a boring old man like Steve Rogers.

A dangerous old man, to be sure, who could probably tear down the walls of your shared apartment building with his bare hands, but boring. He had a strict enough daily routine, almost down to the minute, that you had just started copying and pasting your reports from one day to the next.

_6am: Sentinel leaves to go for a jog.  
10am: Sentinel returns.  
1pm: Sentinel goes for a walk.   
9pm: Sentinel takes his motorcycle to the boxing gym.   
1am: Sentinel returns. _

As you monitor the feed from street cameras outside the building (which you hacked into) and tally the number of times he exercises his already super-serumed body in a given day, you truly cannot imagine a bigger waste of your time and talent. But, Fury promised an upper-level position in the future if you could handle the Rogers situation. 

He finally diverged from his routine yesterday—Saturday—to buy groceries. You had briefly caught him in the hallway on your way to get your mail. He had lugged several heavy bags up the steps of your building, the muscles in his arms not even straining under the weight. He simply nodded at you, averted his eyes, and walked into his dim apartment.

You guess that Sundays will prove the most boring day of them all, since it’s currently 8pm and he hasn’t even left his apartment. You’ve only heard him padding around, listening to his sad, old records. You feel tempted to go to sleep, pretty convinced that nothing of note could happen today, when you hear a knock on your door.

After looking through the peephole, you quickly close the SHIELD surveillance programs on your laptop. You swing the door open and look up at Captain America, who appears much bigger and bulkier standing in front of you than he does on your various camera feeds.

With blond hair parted and swept neatly back, he wears a green button-up shirt rolled up to his elbows and tucked into dark, belted jeans. One of his hands grasps a flimsy paperback book. You wonder if he just lounges around his own apartment like that.

His eyes flicker up and down your body, as he probably wonders the same thing, with you wearing a college sweatshirt and painfully mismatched pajama shorts.

“Hello,” he says. You can feel the awkwardness radiating off him. “I’m Steve, your neighbor across the hall.”

“Uh, hi,” you reply, your voice laced with confusion. You catch yourself, remembering to act polite, _neighborly_. You give him a slightly altered version of your real name and say, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Do you happen to have… um, soy sauce?” He tightens the grip on his book, rolling it up in his hand.

You blink at him. You glance back into your apartment, trying to recall the last time you made stir fry. “Yes, I think I do.” You turn back. “Do you want to borrow some?”

“I would appreciate it. Thank you.” He gives you a curt nod.

“Come on in.” Inviting him in, what a normal neighbor would do.

He only takes two shy steps into your apartment, closing the door quietly behind him. You walk to your kitchen shelves, feeling oddly nervous as he watches you.

“Aren’t neighbors supposed to ask for a cup of sugar or something?” you ask him jokingly, quickly checking each bottle in your collection of ingredients. You peer at him through your open wire shelves. He blinks at your collection of DVDs, tilting his head a little to read the spines.

Rogers smiles, but just barely. “Sugar, I have. I’m trying some new recipes.” He looks down at his hand, studying the cover of his book. 

You see the soy sauce but pretend otherwise. You can’t help but comment, “I feel like I haven’t seen a real recipe book in like, years.” 

He looks up. He sounds genuinely curious. “Where do you get yours?”

“My recipes? Um, the internet,” you reply, finally plucking the mostly-empty bottle of dark liquid from its location at the back of your shelf. You step over and hand it to him. “I guess a book can be nice because it’s not filled with ads and like, unnecessary background stories about how the recipe was developed, but you can find pretty much anything on the internet. Even videos. Recipe videos, on YouTube.”

Self-consciously, you notice not just your rambling, but also your staring, fixating squarely on the broadness of his chest. After days of basically spying on him, you don’t necessarily want to look him in the eye.

“Can I ask you something?” Now you make eye contact with him. He doesn’t wait for you to respond to his first question. “Are you good with that stuff? The internet… computers?”

You almost laugh when he asks you that. You know he has literally no intention of patronizing you, but you do have a degree in computer programming. “Sure. But it’s not like I’m an expert or anything.” Another lie.

You have an idea of where this conversation will go, and you distantly know you should back out, but you bite anyway. “Why?”

He turns his gaze down to the floor, at your slippered feet, making your toes curl. “Do you know who I am?” His question has no pride or arrogance, no Captain America bravado. He just sounds… sad.

You swallow. You consider offering him another lie, but you know most of the other civilians around you have seen the story on the news about the almost-centenarian hero, rediscovered in the middle of nowhere. And, they’ve started to notice the old-fashioned, hulking, broody guy living in their neighborhood. The rumors have spread, and realistically you would have heard them.

“I do.” 

He nods slowly, and you curse the sympathetic feelings that start churning in your stomach. You have tried to avoid thinking about the crazy story of Steve Rogers’ life, mostly because you don’t like to imagine the man you’ve studied for days, the man currently anxiously studying your DVD shelf again, as the same American idol they found pale and frozen in ice. Less than a week ago, this guy had to be… _defrosted._ Now he stands in front of you, solid and real, trying to adjust.

He shifts your bottle of soy sauce to the hand holding his recipe book. Then, from his front pocket, he produces a smartphone. “I don’t really know what I’m doing with all these things they gave me. I could use some help,” he says quietly.

You try to recall the mission protocol Fury gave you. Lending Steve Rogers tech support would either break it and get you fired, or it would seem like going the extra mile for the rookie SHIELD agent assigned to make sure Captain America adjusts to modern-day living. 

“I would be happy to,” you say carefully.

He looks relieved. “Thank you.” He tucks the phone back into his pocket, then rubs his thumb over the pages of his recipe book. “Are you… tonight, maybe? I could bring over some food.” A small twitch of his lips breaks the stern look on his face, making him look almost friendly. “If I don’t mess it up.”

This decision could end in so many unforeseen, and possibly terrible ways. “That would be great,” you lie. He steps to the side as you move to grab your doorknob, twisting the door open. “Whenever you’re ready, just… knock on my door.”

— — —

For someone from the 40s, his cooking turns out to taste pretty good. He overdid the vegetables a little bit, but you still brought plenty of forkfuls into your mouth as he tapped away at his phone screen, brow furrowed.

You knew in the back of your mind that The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan had great tactical skills and could fly planes or whatever, but he has picked up on everything you showed him surprisingly quickly for someone seventy years older than this technology.

“How do I know I’m using wifi and not data?” he asks.

Despite his great memory, he has a little leather notebook open on the table where he writes down some of the things you tell him. In the corner of the notebook, he’s created little sketches—trees, storefronts, planes.

You wipe your hand on a napkin and point to the upper part of the screen. “Right there. That little symbol means wifi.”

“What do the other symbols mean?”

You explain them all to him. He listens patiently, never interrupting you, just asking the occasional question and writing things down. You even explain how some of it works, though you carefully avoid talking about anything outside the realm of knowledge for a typical civilian.

While explaining the intricacies of Bluetooth, you glance at the clock in your living room. Rogers notices. 

You get the sense that he notices a lot, putting all these observations about the world into his notes, things you wouldn’t even _think_ to think twice about. Over the past two-and-a-half hours he just spent sitting at your little dining table trying to figure out smartphones and laptops and the cloud, you’re pretty sure he has studied pretty much every object you own, from the pictures of your friends on the wall to your blender.

He places his pen along the inside spine of the book and shuts it. “I should get out of your hair. You must have work tomorrow.”

In fact, you don’t have anywhere to go tomorrow except in front of your laptop, logging his every move. It’s not late for you, and it’s definitely not late for him, according to his probably insomnious schedule. 

Despite his language still sounding a bit stilted and awkward, his soldier’s posture has gradually relaxed throughout the night. At one point, he took off his button-up to reveal a simple white t-shirt, which he has no business making look that good, you decided.

He stands up, and you follow his lead, gathering up the dishes and cups you’ve both accumulated throughout the night. You push the bottle of soy sauce, which he had placed in the middle of the table, toward him. “Keep it.” 

He hesitates, but takes the bottle back. He rolls it around in his hand to read the label as he pulls his other shirt off the back of your dining room chair. As he walks toward your door, you take the moment to steal glances at the expanse of his back muscles stretching his t-shirt and at his contrastingly narrow hips. Then, he turns around, giving you a small nod in goodnight. 

“Thanks for the food, Steve,” you murmur. You feel full, warm, standing close to him.

“Thank you for the company,” he says gently. He blinks slowly at you, another barely-there smile gracing his face, then opens the door behind him.

“If—” you say, trying not to sound strangled, because in no way should you let the following words leave your mouth. “…you ever want company. Don’t hesitate to ask.”

He nods, his eyes kind. “Okay.”


	2. part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you're too close, you and rogers.

You wake up to Steve whispering to you, shrugging slightly. You open your eyes, raising your head from where it lay on his shoulder. Music plays from your TV speakers; black-and-white credits roll up the screen.

“I thought this was one of your favorite movies,” he chuckles. “You fell asleep halfway through.”

You should feel embarrassed, but judging by the way your shared blanket has migrated from where it once covered your lap to tucked over your shoulder, you don’t think he minded much.

Smiling, he points your remote to the TV, turning down the volume. You notice that your phone, sitting face-up on the coffee table, displays three text notifications. You reach over, knocking the blanket off your shoulders. You unlock it. 

The first text reads: _Tesseract compromised._

_Debriefing packet emailed._

_Deliver to Sentinel, 2200 tomorrow._

“Shit.” You cover your mouth with your palm, turning off your phone screen before he sees it. You press the corner of the device against your heart, digging it in until it hurts.

He moves so his arm goes over the back of the couch, his whole body half-surrounding you. “Hey.” He laughs. “It’s okay, I don’t mind when you fall asleep.”

Per Steve’s shy request, you have spent the past few weeks watching movies together to get him caught up on popular culture. Starting with the Best Picture nominees from 2012, you’ve made your way backwards, from great films to bad blockbusters. You had rambled in excitement about tonight’s movie, _The Social Network,_ as you settled into your usual spot on the couch. He had brought the popcorn. 

At the beginning of each movie, you liked to insert commentary, letting him know if the scenes or characters referenced some other piece of media you should probably get him caught up on. He would glance at you, nodding, sometimes writing down a note. However, in the second and third acts, you had fallen asleep enough times for him to just accept it. Let you tuck into his chest rather than try to wake you. You couldn’t help yourself; he radiated warmth and solidness, a new constant and comfort in your life.

Most nights, he would wake you up at the end, and you would have a soft-spoken discussion about the movie, or at least what you could remember about it. Other nights, he would simply make sure you had a blanket tucked around your body and a pillow under your head, and return to his own apartment across the hall.

Fury had never really approved of the ever-closing distance between you and the object of your mission, but he noticed the correlation between how much time you spent with him and the gradual relaxation of his rigid schedule. Steve started leaving for his morning jog at irregular times, returning home earlier in the evenings, and making more trips out, mostly to a variety of grocery stores. Fury took these changes as signs of progress, and begrudgingly allowed you to keep seeing him.

_You’re not…_ seeing _him, are you?_ Fury had asked, in a way that made it clear he didn’t really want to know.

_No, sir._

In the back of your mind, you knew you should have started pulling out from this friendship before you grew too attached to the soldier. SHIELD revived him and employed someone to watch his every move for a reason, a reason bigger than you or him. He shouldn’t be buying you a new bottle of soy sauce, asking you to try his increasingly elaborate cooking, or being your pillow during _The King’s Speech._

Steve is—unavoidably, now—your friend. He sends you pictures of things he sees on his walks around New York, texting you questions when he doesn’t understand something. He invited you to see a Broadway show with him, still a little confused about the hype around Times Square. Almost every day, he asks you how your day went, and you have to make up bullshit stories about coworkers in some nondescript job. He would nod as he listened to your elaborate falsehoods, as if he understood insignificant civilian problems such as someone hitting ‘Reply All’ on an office-wide email.

Steve Rogers crashed a plane in an effort to keep the Tesseract out of the wrong hands—to save your city, which thrives decades after his sacrifice and hopes to thrive in the future. But now, the same threat looms again. 

You know you’ve fucked up. You’ve fucked up so badly by allowing his sweet, solemn sadness anywhere near you. Letting yourself, and letting him, get distracted by anything that wasn’t the mission.

You move your hand from your mouth as soon as you feel a tear fall down your cheek, wiping it away and standing up from the couch. You step away from him, and the blanket falls to the floor.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

You turn. Worry creases his strong brow. 

“What happened?” He looks at your phone, gripped tightly in your hand. You hear an edge in his question.

“Rogers, you have to promise me something.” You feel too pathetic to stand, so you lower yourself onto the arm rest of the sofa. You resist the urge to throw your phone to the ground, smashing it.

He exhales shakily. “What’s going on?” He tucks his hands behind your knees, tugging himself closer to you. You’ve never called him _Rogers_ before.

“Promise me you’ll hear what I’m about to say.“

You think about a conversation you once had about a promise, when it was late enough at night, post-movie, that your drowsy brain decided to ask him a personal question about his life _before_. You remember what he said, clear as day. _That he promised her a dance._

He shakes his head slightly, never breaking eye contact with you. “Tell me what you saw on your phone.” It sounds, vaguely, like an order. One you would follow, if he ever became your Captain. If he accepted what Fury will soon offer him.

You blink, a couple of tears dripping down your cheeks. “Something’s gonna happen tomorrow. And I need you to know…” _That I’ve been lying to you this whole time,_ you chastise yourself.“That you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

He tilts his head a little, moving his palms to the outside of your knees, rubbing there. “What are you talking ab—?” 

“ _Just,_ listen to me. Please.” Your voice strains, and breaks.

“I _am_ listening,” Steve insists, his tension rising. “I don’t understand.” He moves his hands to hold both your wrists. You feel small as he pleads, “Help me understand.”

This is the one thing you can’t explain to him.

You want to cup his cheeks, stroke his golden hair out of its stiff old-fashioned style, and freeze time so he stays just like this, unaware of the stolen alien _whatever_ that might terrorize your planet. You want to keep him here, in the safety of your apartment, with you. But you know that touching him like that would cross boundaries, both professional and personal. 

You should have kept your distance from him.

You blink away a tear, your voice unsteady. “Rogers, you’ve fought in a war. Laid down your life to save us once already.” 

He deserves more than just a few weeks of peace, time to breathe and live, a thousand more chances to ask his funny little questions and draw his stupid little pictures before he marches back into danger. 

“You don’t owe anyone anything anymore.”

The desperation in his face borders on fear, even anger, because he has the right to distrust you. He should have distrusted you from the beginning. “What’s going to happen tomorrow?” 

The problem is, you don’t know exactly. You just know that the debriefing packet SHIELD instructed you to place in Steve’s apartment tomorrow marks the beginning of what Fury calls _the Avengers Initiative._

Steve doesn’t seem like much of an _Avenger_ to you. Not that he couldn’t help take down whoever stole the Tesseract, but… you just see Steve _._

“I can’t tell you.” You swallow. You try to extract your wrists from his hands, but he doesn’t let go. “I don’t have high enough clearance to tell you.” You say this hardly above a whisper, as if his super-soldier hearing won’t pick up on your confession.

“Clearance?” he repeats softly. He squeezes, once, desperately. Then he drops you, standing up, towering over you scarily in your darkened apartment. “You’re with SHIELD,” he says, and it’s not a question.

You choke out, “Steve, I’m sorry—”

“Stop,” he interjects, his voice cold. “Fury sent you. Why?” He throws angry looks around your place, searching for evidence, for some sort of clue that would have told him that you weren’t who you said you were. 

The physical evidence he looks for doesn’t exist; the proof of your betrayal lives digitally in your laptop. You could pull up the protocol on your computer, read him every word in that boring bulleted list. You want to prove to him that you never intended for this to happen. And since SHIELD will almost certainly fire you, you could even tell him your real name.

Instead, you explain, “To watch over you, I don’t know. To monitor your progress—”

“Like I’m some sort of lab monkey?” he accuses, acidic and jarring. “It wasn’t already enough experimenting for SHIELD when they pulled me from the ice? Poked at me with a stick to see if I was still alive?”

“I had nothing to do with that,” you tell him weakly, closing your eyes when he snatches his phone and keys from your coffee table.

“I trusted you,” he bites.

You stand up, trying to block him from your door. Your combat training amounts to nothing when confronting a pissed-off super soldier. His blue eyes flicker with fire, your sweet neighbor Steve gone. “Trust me now.” You explain, “I’m on your side, _SHIELD_ is on your side—”

“I _trusted_ you to be normal,” he corrects himself. Sadness replaces anger. “To be a friend.”

A memory:

_“Wait. Like, hundreds of songs?” Steve asked, placing two plates of food on the table. You offered him the second earbud. He put it in, leaning over to see what you were doing on your iPod._

_“More like thousands,” you said, laughing._

_He hummed, impressed. He watched you scroll quickly, skimming through dozens of song titles he’d never seen before. “You gonna eat?” He elbowed you, smiling._

_“Hush, I’m trying to pick something you might like,” you replied, concentration furrowing your brow._

“Steve,” you whisper. “I am.”

“I’m leaving.” His voice is thin. “Move. Before I move you.”

The door slams, shaking your apartment.


	3. part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath of the battle of new york.

You lose a friend. Then, you lose your field job at SHIELD, probably doomed to spend your days doing their logistical work behind a desk. To top it all off, you lose your apartment, on the day of—what people are already calling— _The Battle of New York._

Family, friends, and vague acquaintances alike call you to make sure you’ve safely evacuated the city. You check your phone occasionally to respond to their concerns but remember to keep a level head, focusing on directing hundreds of civilians toward the buses bringing people out toward the suburbs. In the midst of all the chaos, the collapsing buildings and hissing aliens and firing guns, you get one text from Steve:

**Are you safe?**

_Yes._

After the evacuation, you end up in some high school gymnasium in New Jersey. You stare at the complicated scaffolding and machinery in the ceiling, your head resting on the backpack you had prepared in case of an emergency, really the only belonging you had left. Hundreds of people surround you, trying to fall asleep on the creaky floor, handing out water bottles and small amounts of food, or calling after their restless children.

Thirty-six hours have passed since the Avengers eradicated the Chitauri from the city. You have no idea when you’ll return there, especially since the freaky aliens demolished your place. Plus, you doubt that SHIELD will put you up in another apartment, since they probably regret giving you the one you had. 

Your phone, which lays against your stomach underneath your folded hands, buzzes alive. You look at the screen, surprised to see a text from Steve: **I’m outside. Front parking lot.**

This marks a grand total of two text messages from him since he found out who you worked for. 

When you walk out the main entrance doors with your arms self-consciously crossed over your body, you indeed find him, leaning against his parked motorcycle. He looks like his normal self. Dark leather jacket, white t-shirt, and jeans. No obnoxiously patriotic red-white-and-blue tactical gear. No stiff-looking black suit probably purchased by Tony Stark, which he makes Steve wear to those tense press conferences you’ve watched on the news.

He looks like your Steve. But he also looks exhausted.

You press your lips together in a weak smile, stopping about three yards away from him, standing in the middle of the parking lot. “How’d you find me?”

“Got someone at SHIELD to track your location,” he responds, a small hint of cheekiness in his mostly grudging tone. “How are you?” he asks.

“Fine.”

“Are all your friends and family accounted for?” Such a formal question, but he asks it softly. 

You rub your arms. “They’re good. They don’t live anywhere near New York.”

He nods once, his eyes looking somewhere past you. “Sounds like a pretty lonely life.”

You duck your head a bit so you can study your shoes, almost completely covered with grayish dirt. There’s a stain at the back of your left heel, probably alien blood. You no longer own any other shoes, and would have to buy new ones.

You try to keep your voice steady. “It wasn’t lonely.”

“No,” he murmurs. “It wasn’t.”

Now you face the sky, ignoring the way he approaches you. You count the few, faint stars you can see shining through the dark blue night. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” you admit. You shudder at all the images you’ve seen on the news, Chitauri crawling all over your city.

“Didn’t do much. Just worked the ground.”

“That’s not nothing.” _You still could have died._

“All in a day’s work,” he says. He stands close enough to touch, his gravitational pull invading your space.

Your eyes flick down to meet his. “It doesn’t just end here,” you say sourly. You seek to invoke some sort of reaction in him, but his face remains neutral. “A team of Enhanced like that? They’ll put you to work. Dangerous work.”

He doesn’t respond to your warning, a disguised plea for him to consider backing out—a plea made too late, anyway, with the image already out there: Captain America, commanding, fighting, and shield-tossing in the 21st century.

Instead, he deflects: “Just so you know, I’ve tried, but I can’t convince Fury to give you another field job.” He smirks, somewhat playful. “Not a good sign that you got so attached to your very first mark.” 

You laugh, but shake your head. “I’m fine where I am.” You could work your way up to the Engineering department. Or better yet, leave the field entirely.

He pulls at one of your sleeves until you let your arms fall to your sides. You feel exposed, and itch to hide yourself from him again. “I also came here to apologize.”

You scoff in disbelief. As if he, one of Earth’s _mightiest heroes,_ has to apologize to you for anything, especially after what he just went through, especially when _your_ incessant lying ruined your friendship. “Steve, I should be the one saying sorry.”

“You were just doing your job,” he insists, though it sounds half-hearted.

“There were boundaries, and I ignored them.” You want to keep your tone level, even somewhat professional. He now holds a higher position in SHIELD than you. “It was inappropriate.” Your voice gets weaker. “And I hurt you.”

He takes your hands into his, just by the fingertips. You feel slightly faint, the warm spring air between you vibrating with something.

“When I woke up, I had nothing.” He laces his fingers with yours, studying your hands for a long, quiet moment. “You were my first friend.”

You open your mouth to interject, but Steve shakes his head at you and keeps going. “It was unfair for you to be the only person I relied on to make any of this feel normal.” He tightens his grip. “I don’t even know why I hoped for _normal_ after… everything.” 

You think about the profile on Steve that Fury had given you before you accepted the job. War, Red Skull, losing the love of his life, waking up 70 years in the future. 

Surrounded by only the unfamiliar. All his friends, dead. And he’s expected to just keep soldiering on. 

Something twists at the base of your throat. “I think you deserve something normal,” you whisper, moving one of your hands to stroke his cheekbone, where you see a shiny tear reflecting the lights of the parking lot. “And I’m sorry I can’t give that to you.” You clear your throat. “Captain.”

You take a step back, pulling completely away from him, digging your hands into the pockets of your hoodie so you won’t touch him again.

You wince slightly at the glimmer of hope in his blue eyes, the way he follows you with an even bigger step forward. He says, “I think I could be happy with a new normal.” 

You think about all the people packed into the building behind you, laying in neatly spaced rows, covering the floor of the gymnasium and spilling into the halls. Desperately trying to contact their loved ones, and wondering how their torn-up city will recover. They must also deal with a new normal.

But they’re all alive. Thanks to the Avengers, thanks to Steve. 

You reach for him, first tugging the lapels of his jacket then snaking your hands underneath it, getting as close as you can. You wrap your arms tightly around his waist, pressing your cheek to his solid chest as he hugs you back. Steve lets go of the breath he’d been holding.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on tumblr! @rodrikstark


End file.
